


12 Days of Christmas 2019 Day 10 - 2nd Set

by PatchworkIdeas



Series: GatheringFiKi 12 Days of Christmas 2019 [10]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: DepressedNarratorKili, Depression, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I tried to make it happy while keeping it realistic, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, SupportiveFili, and dealing with it, but if any of the above is a trigger; please stay save and skip this one, in the past; unplanned; no details; but it's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21907042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatchworkIdeas/pseuds/PatchworkIdeas
Summary: Fili promised to always catch him if he fell.(And he did.)
Relationships: Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Series: GatheringFiKi 12 Days of Christmas 2019 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569745
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	12 Days of Christmas 2019 Day 10 - 2nd Set

**Author's Note:**

> **Please** heed the tags, this one ended up a bit darker than my usual stuff.
> 
> -
> 
> Inspired by GatheringFiKi's gorgeous Photoset!
> 
> Posted here with permission, and can be found on Tumblr [here](https://gatheringfiki.tumblr.com/post/189812303457/12-days-of-christmas-day-10-bonus-fullsize-fili)

* * *

"Local Heroes Save Suicidal Girl!"

The headline stood big and proud on the front page of the newspaper. One of their regulars must have dropped it off before going on their way.  
A well-meant gesture.  
Not like anyone knew his story.  
His brother had deflated when he saw Kili reading it. Fili must have seen it during their last supply run. Guess Kili now knew why that had been cut short.  
He appreciated the warm hand on his shoulder, squeezing, before his brother left for the kitchen.

Fili would most likely make him some hot chocolate, with extra cream. He would then get his guitar and settle down close enough that Kili could see he was there-was ready for anything he would need-but far enough away not to crowd him if it turned out to be one of those days.

Kili could see it in his mind's eye.  
He would reluctantly open the page and read, cringing at the rubbish about him being a hero and how the poor, poor girl didn't know what she was doing and ought to be thankful for her rescue.  
Most survivors were, and for good reasons.  
Kili didn't mind the praise and admiration when they found someone who had gotten lost, or overestimated themselves and got stuck on the mountain.  
That's what Mountain Rescue was for.

Those who went there in search of death were a different thing all together.  
Kili should know-he had been one of them.

He hadn't done it consciously, when he walked out the door of that rented little cabin at the foot of the mountain. He just hadn't thought to bring anything with him. It hadn't felt worth it.

In the span of a couple of months, he had lost his mother, the only family he thought he had left anymore.  
He had lost his job, after some dickwad thought corruption was funny and bribery just another part of the game.  
And he lost his reputation, and any chance of getting a different job, when the media painted _all of them_ as involved.  
Kili hadn't been. Hadn't even suspected.

Not that anyone believed him.  
It didn't matter that there was no proof; that the police let him go because he was _innocent._  
It didn't matter.  
Nobody wanted to be seen with the likes of him.  
(He had never realised how many fair weather friends he had.) 

He hadn't intended to go there to die, but he'd known he couldn't afford the trip.  
He took it anyway.

When he was little, before everything burned, he had gone climbing with his family on that very mountain.  
He remembered overestimating himself.  
And he remembered his big brother catching him, with a smile and a joke and an assurance he would always be there to catch him if he fell.

Not a year later their parents split them up, each going their own way.

He had tried to keep in contact, but both of their parents kept moving and one day... one day the letters just stopped. Whether by choice or because they didn't get the new address didn't matter in the end.

Alone was alone.

Kili had thought he had learned to live with the pain. Learned to swallow it down when he smelled that ridiculous fish dish that Fili loved. He learned not to look around wildly when he heard a familiar laugh; learned to let go of the pain and live his own life.  
One with his own friends and family, careers and partnerships.

But when nothing else was left...

The loss had been choking him when he saw the ad for the mountain.  
Their last truly happy memory. 

A promise doomed to failure.

But Fili had caught him, Kili remembered, the newspaper still unopened in his hands.  
He had found him and gave him a home and tried to heal what others had broken.  
He had listened, and he had learned, and not once had he been annoyed or angry that instead of finding his happy little brother, he had caught a broken mess of a man instead.  
Fili kept insisting that he was glad he found him that day, regardless of how bad things got sometimes. 

And they did get bad sometimes.

He could see Fili settling in for another one: for hours of not talking, or having to hold him while he sobbed and screamed or trying to play Kili's favourite tunes until his fingers bled, just to give him something to come back to when he got lost in his head. 

If anyone was a hero here, it was Fili. 

Kili closed his eyes, breathed, in and out, like Fili did when they stood at one of the cliffs, overlooking their gorgeous landscape and wanting to commit it to memory.  
Like Fili did when he had talked him down all those years ago. 

No.  
Not today.  
He would not go down that road again. 

Opening his eyes, he threw the unread newspaper in the bin before striding into the kitchen.  
Fili just about had the milk warm and looked at him in confusion at this clear divergence to how these days usually went.  
Kili didn't care.  
Instead he pulled him close, away from the stove, and kissed him like his life depended on it.  
Fili was quick to respond, he always was, as much as he had been wary of just being a bandage for the hurt in the beginning.  
But he wasn't.  
He was _everything._  
The one good thing Kili had in his life. The one person he could always depend on; who could make him smile when he hadn't seen anything good in the world anymore, who could make him laugh, who held him on his bad days and cherished him on his good ones.  
Kili didn't know what miracle had brought them back together again, but he wasn't going to squander another day of it. 

It was only the milk boiling over that had them hastily break apart, trying to keep the mess to a minimum.  
Cleaning the kitchen together might not have been how he had wanted to thank his own personal hero, but it still lifted the mood.  
They ended up throwing soap suds at each other while doing the dishes and instead of drinking hot chocolate Fili made them a little smoothie with the wild berries they had picked yesterday.  
There were plans for their next big trip, a short hike to appreciate the unusually good weather, and a movie enjoyed under plenty of blankets, snuggling and warming each other up. 

It was a good day. 

And as long as Kili had any say in it, there would be plenty more of those in their future.

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](https://patchworkideas.tumblr.com/post/189815996355/gatheringfiki-the-following-ficlet-was-written)
> 
> Many, many thanks to [dragonsquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsquill), who helped me edit this when I couldn't do it myself anymore and gave me the courage to post this despite my worries about it.


End file.
